We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following agencies and organizations: State Committee of Science of Armenia, Armenia; The Australian Research Council, Astronomy Australia Ltd, The University of Adelaide, Australian National University, Australia, Monash University, Australia, The University of New South Wales, Australia, The University of Sydney, Australia, Western Sydney University, Australia; Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, and Innsbruck University, Austria; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Brazil, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil, Fundação de Apoio à Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação do Paraná - Fundação Araucária, Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC), Brasil; Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Bulgaria, National RI Roadmap Project DO1-153/28.08.2018, Bulgaria; The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, Canada; CONICYT-Chile grants CATA AFB 170002, ANID PIA/APOYO AFB 180002, ACT 1406, FONDECYT-Chile grants, 1161463, 1170171, 1190886, 1171421, 1170345, 1201582, Gemini-ANID 32180007, Chile; Croatian Science Foundation, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, University of Osijek, Republic of Croatia, University of Rijeka, University of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Croatia; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, MEYS, Republic of Bulgaria LM2015046, LM2018105, LTT17006, EU/MEYS CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001403, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_046/0016007 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000754, Czech Republic; Academy of Finland, Finland (grant nr.317636 and 320045), Finland; Ministry of Higher Education and Research, CNRS-INSU and CNRS-IN2P3, CEA-Irfu, ANR, Regional Council Ile de France, Labex, Sweden ENIGMASS, OCEVU, OSUG2020 and P2IO, France; Max Planck Society, BMBF, DESY, Helmholtz Association, Germany; Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology, India; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Italy, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy, MIUR, Italy, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF-OABRERA) Grant Fondazione Cariplo/Regione Lombardia, Italy ID 2014-1980/RST_ERC, Italy; ICRR, University of Tokyo, Japan, JSPS, Japan, MEXT, Japan; Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands; University of Oslo, Norway; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, DIR/WK/2017/12, the National Centre for Research and Development and the National Science Centre, UMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00583, Poland; Slovenian Research Agency, grants P1-0031, P1-0385, I0-0033, J1-9146, J1-1700, N1-0111, and the Young Researcher program, Slovenia; South African Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation through the South African Gamma-Ray Astronomy Programme, South Africa; The Spanish groups acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish Research State Agency (AEI) through grants AYA2016-79724-C4-1-P, AYA2016-80889-P, AYA2016-76012-C3-1-P, BES-2016-076342, FPA2017-82729-C6-1-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-2-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-3-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-4-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-5-R, FPA2017-82729-C6-6-R, PGC2018-095161-B-I00, PGC2018-095512-B-I00, PID2019-107988GB-C22; the “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa” program through grants no. SEV-2016-0597, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2017-0709, CEX2019-000920-S; the “Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu” program through grant no. MDM-2015-0509; the “Ramón y Cajal” programme through grants RYC-2013-14511, RYC-2017-22665; and the MultiDark Consolider Network FPA2017-90566-REDC. They also acknowledge the Atracción de Talento contract no. 2016-T1/TIC-1542 granted by the Comunidad de Madrid; the “Postdoctoral Junior Leader Fellowship” programme from La Caixa Banking Foundation, grants no. LCF/BQ/LI18/11630014 and LCF/BQ/PI18/11630012; the “Programa Operativo” FEDER 2014–2020, Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento de la Junta de Andalucía (Ref. [1257737]), PAIDI 2020 (Ref. P18-FR-1580) and Universidad de Jaén, Spain; “Programa Operativo de Crecimiento Inteligente” FEDER 2014–2020 (Ref. ESFRI-2017-IAC-12), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain, 15% co-financed by Consejería de Economía, Industria, Comercio y Conocimiento del Gobierno de Canarias; the Spanish AEI EQC2018-005094-P FEDER 2014–2020; the European Union’s “Horizon 2020” research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 665919; and the ESCAPE project with grant no. GA:824064; Swedish Research Council, Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Sweden, The Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Lunarc (Lund), Sweden; State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), Switzerland and Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Switzerland; Durham University, United Kingdom, Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom, Liverpool University, University of Leicester, United Kingdom, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Royal Society, United Kingdom, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, United States, Argonne National Laboratory, United States, Barnard College, United States, University of California, United States, University of Chicago, United States, Columbia University, United States, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPAC-MRPI program), Iowa State University, United States, the Smithsonian Institution, United States, Washington University McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, The University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, USA. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreements No 262053 and No 317446. This project is receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programs under agreement No 676134.

Acero, F. et al.--Full list of authors: Acero, F.; Acharyya, A.; Adam, R.; Aguasca-Cabot, A.; Agudo, I.; Aguirre-Santaella, A.; Alfaro, J.; Aloisio, R.; Crespo, N. Alvarez; Batista, R. Alves; Amati, L.; Amato, E.; Ambrosi, G.; Anguner, E. O.; Aramo, C.; Arcaro, C.; Armstrong, T.; Asano, K.; Ascasibar, Y.; Aschersleben, J.; Backes, M.; Baktash, A.; Balazs, C.; Balbo, M.; Ballet, J.; Larriva, A. Baquero; Martins, V. Barbosa; Barres de Almeida, U.; Barrio, J. A.; Bastieri, D.; Baxter, J. R.; Tjus, J. Becker; Benbow, W.; Bernardos-Martin, M. I.; Bernete, J.; Berti, A.; Bertucci, B.; Beshley, V.; Bhattacharjee, P.; Bhattacharyya, S.; Biland, A.; Bissaldi, E.; Biteau, J.; Blanch, O.; Bordas, P.; Bottacini, E.; Bregeon, J.; Brose, R.; Bucciantini, N.; Bulgarelli, A.; Capasso, M.; Dolcetta, R. A. Capuzzo; Caraveo, P.; Cardillo, M.; Carosi, R.; Casanova, S.; Cascone, E.; Cassol, F.; Catalani, F.; Cerruti, M.; Chadwick, P.; Chaty, S.; Chen, A.; Chernyakova, M.; Chiavassa, A.; Chudoba, J.; Coimbra-Araujo, C.; Conforti, V.; Contreras, J. L.; Costa, A.; Costantini, H.; Cristofari, P.; Crocker, R.; D'Amico, G.; D'Ammando, F.; De Angelis, A.; De Caprio, V.; Pino, E. M. de Gouveia Dal; Wilhelmi, E. de Ona; de Souza, V.; Delgado, C.; della Volp, D.; Depaoli, D.; Di Girolamo, T.; Di Pierro, F.; Di Tria, R.; Di Venere, L.; Diebold, S.; Djuvsland, J. I.; Donini, A.; Doro, M.; Dos Anjos, R. d. C.; Dwarkadas, V. V.; Einecke, S.; Elsaesser, D.; Emery, G.; Evoli, C.; Falceta-Goncalves, D.; Fedorova, E.; Fegan, S.; Ferrand, G.; Fiandrini, E.; Filipovic, M.; Fioretti, V.; Fiori, M.; Foffano, L.; Fontaine, G.; Fukami, S.; Galanti, G.; Galaz, G.; Gammaldi, V.; Gasbarra, C.; Ghalumyan, A.; Ghirlanda, G.; Giarrusso, M.; Giavitto, G.; Giglietto, N.; Giordano, F.; Giroletti, M.; Giuliani, A.; Giunti, L.; Godinovic, N.; Coelho, J. Goulart; Greaux, L.; Green, D.; Grondin, M. -H.; Gueta, O.; Gunji, S.; Hassan, T.; Heller, M.; Hernandez-Cadena, S.; Hinton, J.; Hnatyk, B.; Hnatyk, R.; Hoffmann, D.; Hofmann, W.; Holder, J.; Horan, D.; Horvath, P.; Hrabovsky, M.; Hrupec, D.; Inada, T.; Incardona, F.; Inoue, S.; Ishio, K.; Jamrozy, M.; Janecek, P.; Martinez, I. Jimenez; Jin, W.; Jung-Richardt, I.; Jurysek, J.; Kaaret, P.; Karas, V.; Katz, U.; Kerszberg, D.; Khelifi, B.; Kieda, D. B.; Kissmann, R.; Kleiner, T.; Kluge, G.; Kluzniak, W.; Knodlseder, J.; Kobayashi, Y.; Kohri, K.; Komin, N.; Kornecki, P.; Kubo, H.; La Palombara, N.; Lainez, M.; Lamastra, A.; Lapington, J.; Lemoine-Goumard, M.; Lenain, J. -P.; Leone, F.; Leto, G.; Leuschner, F.; Lindfors, E.; Liodakis, I.; Lohse, T.; Lombardi, S.; Longo, F.; Lopez-Coto, R.; Lopez-Moya, M.; Lopez-Oramas, A.; Loporchio, S.; Luque-Escamilla, P. L.; Macias, O.; Mackey, J.; Majumdar, P.; Mandat, D.; Manganaro, M.; Manico, G.; Marconi, M.; Marti, J.; Martinez, G.; Martinez, M.; Martinez, O.; Mello, A. J. T. S.; Menchiari, S.; Meyer, D. M. -A.; Micanovic, S.; Miceli, D.; Miceli, M.; Michalowski, J.; Miener, T.; Miranda, J. M.; Mitchell, A.; Mode, B.; Moderski, R.; Mohrmann, L.; Molina, E.; Montaruli, T.; Morcuende, D.; Morlino, G.; Morselli, A.; Mose, M.; Moulin, E.; Mukherjee, R.; Munari, K.; Murach, T.; Nagai, A.; Nagataki, S.; Nemmen, R.; Niemiec, J.; Nieto, D.; Nievas Rosillo, M.; Nikolajuk, M.; Nishijima, K.; Noda, K.; Novosyadlyj, B.; Nozaki, S.; Ohishi, M.; Ohm, S.; Ohtani, Y.; Okumura, A.; Olmi, B.; Ong, R. A.; Orienti, M.; Orito, R.; Orlandini, M.; Orlando, E.; Orlando, S.; Ostrowski, M.; Oya, I.; Pantaleo, F. R.; Paredes, J. M.; Patricelli, B.; Pecimotika, M.; Peresano, M.; Perez-Romero, J.; Persic, M.; Petruk, O.; Piano, G.; Pietropaolo, E.; Pirola, G.; Pittori, C.; Pohl, M.; Ponti, G.; Prandini, E.; Principe, G.; Priyadarshi, C.; Pueschel, E.; Puehlhofer, G.; Pumo, M. L.; Quirrenbach, A.; Rando, R.; Razzaque, S.; Reichherzer, P.; Reimer, A.; Reimer, O.; Renaud, M.; Reposeur, T.; Ribo, M.; Richtler, T.; Rico, J.; Rieger, F.; Rigoselli, M.; Riitano, L.; Rizi, V.; Roache, E.; Romano, P.; Romeo, G.; Rosado, J.; Rowell, G.; Rudak, B.; Sadeh, I.; Safi-Harb, S.; Saha, L.; Sailer, S.; Sanchez-Conde, M.; Sarkar, S.; Satalecka, K.; Saturni, F. G.; Scherer, A.; Schovanek, P.; Schussler, F.; Schwanke, U.; Scuderi, S.; Seglar-Arroyo, M.; Sergijenko, O.; Servillat, M.; Shang, R. -Y.; Sharma, P.; Siejkowski, H.; Sliusar, V.; Slowikowska, A.; Sol, H.; Specovius, A.; Spencer, S. T.; Spengler, G.; Stamerra, A.; Stanic, S.; Starecki, T.; Starling, R.; Stolarczyk, T.; Stuani Pereira, L. A.; Suda, Y.; Suomijarvi, T.; Sushch, I.; Tajima, H.; Tam, P. -H. T.; Tanaka, S. J.; Tavecchio, F.; Testa, V.; Tian, W.; Tibaldo, L.; Torres, D. F.; Tothill, N.; Vallage, B.; Vallania, P.; van Eldik, C.; van Scherpenberg, J.; Vandenbroucke, J.; Vazquez Acosta, M.; Vecchi, M.; Vercellone, S.; Verna, G.; Viana, A.; Vignatti, J.; Vitale, V.; Vodeb, V.; Vorobiov, S.; Vuillaume, T.; Wagner, S. J.; Walter, R.; White, M.; Wierzcholska, A.; Will, M.; Williams, D.; Yang, L.; Yoshida, T.; Yoshikoshi, T.; Zaharijas, G.; Zampieri, L.; Zavrtanik, D.; Zavrtanik, M.; Zhdanov, V. I.; Zivec, M.; Cherenkov Telescope Array Consortium

The local Cosmic Ray (CR) energy spectrum exhibits a spectral softening at energies around 3 PeV. Sources which are capable of accelerating hadrons to such energies are called hadronic PeVatrons. However, hadronic PeVatrons have not yet been firmly identified within the Galaxy. Several source classes, including Galactic Supernova Remnants (SNRs), have been proposed as PeVatron candidates. The potential to search for hadronic PeVatrons with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is assessed. The focus is on the usage of very high energy-ray spectral signatures for the identification of PeVatrons. Assuming that SNRs can accelerate CRs up to knee energies, the number of Galactic SNRs which can be identified as PeVatrons with CTA is estimated within a model for the evolution of SNRs. Additionally, the potential of a follow-up observation strategy under moonlight conditions for PeVatron searches is investigated. Statistical methods for the identification of PeVatrons are introduced, and realistic Monte-Carlo simulations of the response of the CTA observatory to the emission spectra from hadronic PeVatrons are performed. Based on simulations of a simplified model for the evolution for SNRs, the detection of a -ray signal from in average 9 Galactic PeVatron SNRs is expected to result from the scan of the Galactic plane with CTA after 10 h of exposure. CTA is also shown to have excellent potential to confirm these sources as PeVatrons in deep observations with O(100) hours of exposure per source. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2019-000920-S).

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Unit of Excellence Maria de Maeztu" accreditation (MDM-2015-0509).

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (SEV-2016-0597).

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (SEV-2016-0588).

With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (SEV-2017-0709).

Peer reviewed